The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals accepted the university's claim that this policy is needed. The Supreme Court sent the case back for a more demanding review. In particular, the Fifth Circuit must explore whether diversity can be attained in race-neutral ways.

The university should lose under this test because alternatives exist, including Texas' own policy of offering admission to the top 10% of high school graduates.

Meanwhile, equal-rights advocates will keep working for a ruling against race-based admissions at all public universities. And Fisher will be cited against schools that expect courts to simply take them at their word.

The misguided precedents that have allowed preferences, such as the court's 2003 Grutter decision, assume race can be used in a nuanced way. But when race plays a role in admissions, it's never minor. Consider the inequities at the University of Texas-Austin: In 2009, for instance, Asians who were admitted had to score an average of 197 points higher on the SAT than incoming Hispanics.

If the goal of "diversity" ever justified race-based double standards, that time is past. When universities assume that a given racial balance equals a corresponding mix of perspectives and experiences, they're stereotyping by race.

The harms are profound when students are treated unequally because of skin color: There is resentment among those not in the favored groups, the supposed "beneficiaries" are saddled with the stigma of lowered standards, and bureaucrats must get into the unsavory business of defining people's race and group membership — an increasingly arbitrary calculation in our multiracial society.

In this case, the court recognized that race-based admissions are in tension with the 14th Amendment's guarantee of "equal protection of the laws." Most Americans agree, as indicated by polls that show preferences are increasingly unpopular.

It's time for university officials to do some soul-searching and ask whether the dubious concept of "diversity" justifies the undeniable wrong of discrimination. Common sense — and a proper reading of the Constitution — say it does not.

Joshua P. Thompson is an attorney with Pacific Legal Foundation. Roger Clegg is president of the Center for Equal Opportunity.